Another Thanksgiving shopping weekend is in the books! From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, the industry witnessed some shifting trends from 2015. The spike in online shopping was a surprise to many and much higher than initially predicted. Here’s some of our biggest takeaways from the largest shopping extravaganza of the year:
- Over 154 million consumers shopped on Black Friday, almost 3 million more than last year.
- According to NRF, the average spend per person was down $10 from last year. While shoppers spent an average of $289.19 in 2016, they averaged $299.60 in 2015.
- Shoppers spent $3.45 billion online on Cyber Monday, and Black Friday’s online sales were only $110 million below that.
- To put it into perspective, last year $2.74 billion was spent online on Black Friday and this year $3.34 billion.
- Food for thought: does this mean next year’s Black Friday could become “Cyber Friday”?
- Retailers such as Walmart and Kohl’s launched mobile payment apps, giving consumers easier methods of online purchasing.
- According to MarketWatch, online spending increased by 18% and in-store sales decreased by 10%.
- This could make for a much more e-commerce based Thanksgiving next year.
- MarketWatch also stated that $1.07 billion was spent on mobile sales on Monday.
So, what does this all mean?
It’s 2016 (almost 2017), and mobile is taking over. You could be sitting on your couch watching a movie and purchase a new coat on your tablet without even standing up. You could be walking down the street without your wallet and find a sweater in the window and still pay for it with your phone. Or, you could go into a store to find a pair of pants, which they don’t have your size, then go home and order it online.
Retailers are spending significant resources to build out their company’s e-commerce experiences, and mobile and online shopping continues to increase. These omni-channel advances are creating endless purchasing and payment option for consumers, only further encouraging customers to go online to find what they are looking for, skipping the in-store experience. But does this mean brick-and-mortar is on it’s way out? That seems to be the question of the year..and maybe next year’s as well.